


a time for kohl and lipstick

by netweight



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: 1950s, F/M, Makeup, Nonnies Made Me Do It, Paris (City)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27253069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/netweight/pseuds/netweight
Summary: They're in France in 1956, by the time "...And God Created Woman" comes out, and they go see it.Written for the prompt "100 words of makeup". It ended up a little longer.
Relationships: Drusilla/Spike (BtVS)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9
Collections: Unofficial FFA Unanon Collection





	a time for kohl and lipstick

They're in France in 1956, by the time "...And God Created Woman" comes out, and they go see it, Spike for naked Brigitte Bardot, and Dru for the images of sunlight and blue sea. In this, she is much like others of their kind, like sun loving is some kind of remnant from their human life magnified by vampirism, even if she is much more prosaic about it than others. Pretty day pictures, she calls them.

She ends up with her elbows on the back of the seat in front of her, leaning forward, chin on her hands, mesmerized.

"You alright there, love?" he asks her silhouetted form, black profile on the grey of cigarette smoke and silver screen.

"I like her eyes," says Dru.

On the screen, Juliette reclines on the sand by the tide, wet dress turned see-through. Her eyes are the less remarkable thing about her, in Spike's opinion. Dru laughs, despite him not having said a thing, and turns with a sly smile. "You don't see it yet. But I will show you.”

She stands and takes his hand, pulls him up, eliciting protests, Spike’s "fuck off, mate" making Dru laugh her tinker bell laugh again, high and short, close-mouthed, like she's a girl getting away with naughtiness, instead of a century old vampire who just snapped the neck of the poor sod sitting in front of her to get a clearer view.

They exit the Normandie and she tugs him along through the streets, arm in arm down the Champs-Élysées and clipping right onto George V Avenue, past well-lit cafés and restaurants, her heels click-clicking on the sidewalk. Mid December the temperatures have risen enough that Parisians are still out and about, as a decade long of peace has finally been enough to dispell the fear and fog of war from their minds and their bones, and they crowd the streets with light and laughter, diving into seasonal _joie de vivre_ , buoyed by petty-coated skirts and existentialism. _Je travaille à être heureux_ , ya plonkers.

They're staying at the George V, because they've moved with the times into hedonism and because it's practical, the staff used to accommodate the eccentricities of guests sleeping through the day, as long as the bell boys don't turn up drained and the money runs free, in a profitable and mutually agreeable policy of "ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies".

The room is lavish and tidy, except for the makeup spread in disarray over the vanity. There are bottles of perfume and glass cream jars with engraved metal lids, lipsticks and pencils, nail lacquer, small boxes of cake mascara. Miss Edith presides, seated against the mirror.

Dru unerringly goes for the old kohl container, a small bronze pot with a lid. It's a sturdy little thing she's had for decades, tethered as if by invisible string through the whirlwind of their lives and travels. Vampires aren't the kind to amass worldly goods, too unmoored from reason and unbound by sentimentality to collect the odds and ends of mundane life. This though, this has been gifted to her by the one who made her, "Here, lass, a gift," way back when they all had still been together, back when they had been family, each others' flesh and blood. Memory etched in paint.

She gathers it in her hand and contemplates it for a moment, the past flowing into the present, and flitting ahead towards the future. It fits so neatly into the palm of her hand. Then she turns, points, "There, on the bed."

"Me?" Spike asks, but he is already leaning back on his hands, libidinous smile playing on his mouth, "Am I going to be made pretty now?"

She climbs astrid him, skirt mushrooming around them, petal-like red. "You're always pretty, love."

His smile softens, gains the edge of happiness. Tried and true.

She removes the lid and dips her fingers in, ignoring the long thin applicator attached to the lid. "Close your eyes," she says, and shivers as the future opens.

"Stay here," he whispers, hands going to her waist, grounding. He touches their foreheads together, waits for her sight to clear, for her vision to return to him.

"I didn't leave," she says, falling in between petulant and chiding, a _moue_ on her semblance. "But you'll be a very bad boy."

"Will I? I thought I already was a very bad boy." He smoothes his hands over the fabric of her skirt, running down the length of her thighs.

"The worse," she confirms, nodding.

"So what's that for?"

"Warpaint," she says and growls low in her throat, feigns a bite, snapping her teeth at him. It makes him laugh and think of Mark Antony's line in Shakespeare's _Julius Caesar_. "Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war." His mind slips down the rabbit hole of conflicted loyalties, shared loves, and betrayals, the poet always humming right beneath his skin.

She hums too, as she tips his face back and delicately presses her fingertips over his eyelids, leaving behind the soft imprint of _chiaroscuro_ , light and dark, like fleeting phantoms. Over and over, until he stops her, hands coming up to gently hold her wrists.

“Dru. Pet. I don’t think she was wearing that much.”

She makes no attempt to slip his grasp, but she says, "Time will come," and moves her head closer, her eyes dark and liquid, her mouth hovering over his, "But this is the time for havoc, still."

There's the beat of a moment and he kisses her then, greedy. When they break, her lipstick is smeared, and he notches his thumb on her lower lip, smudges it further. The slightly waxy feeling on his own lips and her snake-like focus on them are telltale signs his own mouth is streaked scarlet.

Her hand is snug beneath his jawline, the hold on his neck strong enough to crush a human windpipe, and he goes with it, lets himself be pushed down on the bed.

She leaves charcoal fingerprints on the sheets.

Later, she says, "I tire of the cold. The snow only brings good tidings to the angels. Let's go south, my Spike. Let's make like the birds and go south. Like in the picture."

Arm extended beside the bed, cigarette dangling from his fingers, Spike exhales smoke, the scent of good tobacco permeating the air. Indolent, indulgent, he says, "Sure, pet. How does Italy sound? Rome?"

She rolls towards him, stops on her side, bent elbow propping up her head. A hand comes to rest on his chest and she idly runs her nails over his skin, sharp as a knife. The blood blooms readily and she brings her fingertips to her mouth, laps it away, and grins, feral. "We will paint the town red."


End file.
